


Push the Line

by raktajinos



Category: The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Feminist Themes, Medical Examination, UST, ruminations on women in male dominated fields of study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raktajinos/pseuds/raktajinos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was still his doctor, but after four weeks on the run hiding in remote locations around the world, the line between professionalism and personal was beginning to blur. </p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	Push the Line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sevenfoxes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfoxes/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this! I saw your post on tumblr about being worried about being a pinch hit. I offered Bourne in my signup and had hoped to get one :D. I just love these two.

The first time Aaron Cross came into her lab, she'd had to do a double take: he was beautiful. Of course, in her line of work - doing ethically dubious experiments on soldiers - she came into contact with some of the most physically impressive specimens humanity could produce. The men and women she took samples from, poked, prodded and tracked every physical detail about, were elite super soldiers trained to survive. 

But there was something about Aaron - or Five as she only knew him, that caught her eye. Maybe it was the light blue of his eyes or the softness of his jawline. Or maybe it was the way he smiled at her when he came into her exam room, always saying a polite "Good morning Dr Sheering," with a small smile. 

If he knew that he affected her, he didn't boast about it, attempting to embarrass her with his knowledge of her innermost thoughts. She appreciated that. It probably drew her to him even more. She'd chosen a career in a male-dominated field, one which got even more male the further up she went, especially when she agreed to work on The Project. Men tended to take one of three paths when there was a minority of women around; either sexually harass them, threaten them with passive aggressive violence, or puff up their chests like apes competing against one another, trying to prove their sexual virility. 

All of which was designed to undermine her and her authority. Men who simply treated her as an equal (or superior as it was when she got the promotion) and weren't threatened by it, were sadly few and far between. 

But Five, Aaron, hadn't been like that. He had treated her with respect and recognized her authority insofar of it having nothing to do with her gender. That isn't to say he was blind to it; he pushed the line in that regard, that was for sure. 

He flirted with her, the playfulness respectful and tentative at first, testing the waters. Asking open ended questions about her day, following up on small things, the deliberate causality of his presence and how it relaxed over time, the way he looked at her with those eyes of his. 

She flirted back, just ever so slightly, it helped break the discomfort and monotony of the exam. And if she was honest with herself, she was flattered by the attention. 

She'd have to remind him (and herself) every session that they were on camera. 

'Never fall for a patient' was one of the top unofficial rules of experimental medicine. And by patient, they meant subject. For a doctor in a regular practice, it wouldn't be a big deal. But when you do what she did...just better to stay away. 

So she did. She never really considered developing feelings for him, she just found him attractive and wanted to straddle him on the exam table and enjoy him. Nothing wrong with a fantasy. 

And yet here she was, in a remote corner of the world with a beautiful man who had saved her life, patching him up as she had always done. But without the cameras; without any reason not to. 

\-----

"Hey," Marta said quietly, stepping up behind Aaron, putting a gentle hand on his upper arm. "I'm all set up," 

He sighed, but nodded and turned to follow her into her makeshift lab in their small rented house. 

Marta busied herself re-arranging tools she's just organized under the guise of giving him privacy as he got undressed, slyly dropping her eyes over her shoulder to watch him. It was ridiculous really, she’d have him mostly naked in front of her in mere moments...but she’d have to be Doctor Sheering than, clinical in her gaze. Glances stolen now allowed her to be Marta, the woman, who could appreciate how beautiful Aaron was as a man and not as a science experiment. Plus, she definitely had a thing for watching the muscles in his back move as he undressed, as he did anything really. He was a man meant to be always in movement, never static. She let her eyes roam over his body as he bent down to undo his shoes. Sure, she'd seen him naked before, she knew every inch of his body inside and out. But that was clinical, as attracted as she had been to him during her work, she'd still been his doctor and thusly had to act accordingly.

He chuckled, breaking her out of her thoughts

"What?" She said, turning around trying not to blush at the thought that he might have caught her looking. 

“Nothing,” he grinned. 

Yup, he’d caught her looking. 

Holding her head high, she forced herself into work mode. “Ready?” 

He nodded and walked the short distance past her to the makeshift exam table, pushing into her personal space as he did, a hand lighting touching her hip and dragging across her abdomen. 

She caught the gasp in her chest before it let out, the intimacy of the gesture shocking her. It wasn’t as if it was unwelcome, boy was it welcome, she was just unused to it. Aaron had always been flirtatious with her during his exams, as a few of the other subjects had been as well. But while they had been simply entertaining themselves, making the hours in the lab a little more fun, Aaron’s gentle smiles and teasing had always felt more personal. A barely-there grazing of hands, shy smiles, and pleasant conversation was as far as it had ever went. She'd flirted back to his advances, but she'd always been able to distance herself from him and see only the science in front of her. 

Now that was not the case. Sure, she was still his doctor but they were fugitives running from a giant shady governmental organization; they had fake names, fake identities, lived by their own rules. She was allowed to blur the line between professionalism and personal - with him at least, less so with the small patient base she’d built, illegally, in the small village they’d found refuge in.

He lifted himself onto the exam table in nothing but his underwear and socks, his eyes following her as she moved around the space. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked, lifting the stethoscope buds to her ears. 

“Fine,” he replied confidently. 

It had been three weeks since he’d taken the active virus and stemmed out. She’d been vigorously cataloguing his reactions to the process, a mix of concern for his well being and the fascination of the pure science of it all. The cognitive stemming wasn’t going to be ready for a year at the most optimistic of measures, and yet here he was, thriving on it. She hypothesized that the success had something to do with the physical alterations being successfully grafted into the DNA without rejection for several months. With better equipment she’d be able to really determine what was going on. But that was for a different life, a different time. For now she’d have to make due with her rudimentary tools. 

She twirled her finger in the air and he twisted on the table to give her access to his back. She lifted the end of the stethoscope to his back, moving it around as she listened for the familiar rhythmic sound of his heart, of his lungs. Some point in the last month she learned the particular sounds of his body, the way he _should_ sound. And somewhere along the way she’d also began to associate those sounds with safety and strength. She didn’t know what she’d do if the sounds changed, if Aaron’s body began to resist the stem drugs and he fell ill or if he died. So every time she did an exam, every time she heard the steady beat of his heart, a wave of relief would pass through her. She was safe for another day. 

And today was no exception; healthy. safe. 

That out of the way, she was able to be distracted by the feel of his skin under her hands, the softness as she moved her hands and the device over the expanse of his back. His skin was warm, the heat of India creating a permanent sheen of sweat on their skin. 

He turned forward as she let her hand follow over his shoulder and down his left bicep, turning it outwards as she did. She tried not to focus on the fact that she hadn't stopped touching him since he sat down, that she was already blurring the lines. 

She wanted to touch more of him, all of him, feel him in the way that wasn't clinical, but as the man he was. She wanted to be touched, to have those hands she'd seen kill people and build weapons be gentle on her body. She'd fantasized about him before this all happened, when she'd be waiting for a test result to come back or alone in her giant house at night, she'd let her mind drift to him. 

"What are you thinking about?" Aaron asked, breaking her out of her reverie.

"Blood samples," she lied, eyes nodding to the needle and vial sticking out of his arm. "And yourself?"

Aaron paused, gaze rolling over her face, seemingly deciding whether to call her bluff. 

"There's a little restaurant a few blocks away, it always smells wonderful when I walk by. I was wondering if you'd like to join me for dinner?" He asked, a little wariness in his voice that she found adorable.

She grinned, "I'd love to! I think you're talking about Padma's place. She's been trying to get us to come visit for a week now." 

Padma was a beautiful, brash middle age woman who had come to Marta's small clinic for a Pap test, and had quickly decided she liked Marta. She stopped by a couple times a week for tea and the gossip of the town. 

Aaron chuckled, "is she the one that keeps giving me tips on how to woo you?"

"Woo?"

"Her word not mine,"

She laughed and removed the needle from his arm, putting the vial into the subterfuge she'd so blessedly acquired. 

"Ya, that's probably her," she said, walking back over to the table. She hoped he'd take some of Padma's suggestions. Or just grab her and kiss her, she didn't need more wooing at this point. 

Trying to focus, she stepped between his legs and put her hands on the skin underneath his right ribcage. In the lab she had top of the line scanners that could do this, but now she had to rely on touch and memory to check for the musculature issues. Part of the stem program was to make the participants less sensitive to pain (and torture), but one of the side effects was that they weren't always able to detect when something was wrong. So she had to do it for less obvious, but highly critical areas like the chest. 

Basically it just felt like an excuse for her to manhandle him. She'd only done it once before (right after he'd taken the cognitive virus) and she'd been so focused on keeping him alive that she didn't have the chance to be distracted, to be aroused by it. 

No such distraction this time. 

She took a deep breath and kept working. 

She had completely the right side and had moved onto the left when Aaron put a hand over hers.

"Marta," he said, his voice low, his breathing slightly laboured. 

Her first instinct was that something was wrong. That passed quickly from her mind when their eyes met and she saw the way he was looking at her. 

"Maggie," she said, correcting the name he called her. She was Maggie now and he was William. 

His other hand came up to grasp the side of her head, pulling her towards him. 

"Marta," he said once again, licking his lips absently. 

Her eyes darting to them. 

She moved her hands out over his chest, down to his abdomen, finger tips gazing the top hem of his underwear, clearly indicating she was for whatever was about to happen. 

He ran his thumb over her lower lip, "this is me wooing you, by the way," he teased. 

She made for another step forward though there was no where left to move, he was on the edge of the table and she firmly pressed against him. 

She smiled, "consider me wooed." And God was she ever. 

He closed the last bit of distance between them and kissed her. It was light at first, gentle and a bit tentative. She bit his lip, applying just a bit of pressure to encourage him on. It seemed to have worked because it changed, from light to fervent, his tongue dipping into her mouth, entangling with her own. 

She stopped only to catch her breath, leaning her forehead against his. Damn he could kiss. 

"I've been wanting to do that since the first day you examined me," he confessed. 

She blushed, feeling warmth tingle down her arms. 

“You’re a remarkable woman Doctor M..aggie Lennox,” he said, using the fake name this time, placing kisses in her hair. 

She moved her hands around to his lower back, holding him tightly, revelling in being able to touch him. 

They stood like that for a minute, just holding each other. 

“I should finish up here,” she said after a while, beginning to reluctantly pull away. 

He let her, but for the rest of the exam he took advantage of their proximity, touching her whenever he could, whether that was a hand on her hip or a loose hold on her hand, something just to maintain the connection. 

She was surprised a little by it, and she wondered if this side of him was more from the person he was before all the experiments, the parts of Kenneth that survived the resequencing. Compassion, loyalty, sympathy, maybe even love. Traits that were considered deadly for his line of work and had been engineered into dormancy. Treadstone subjects weren’t supposed to feel love or any sort of emotional dependency on another person. Not that he was in love with her or anything, they hadn’t known each other that long. But the part of the brain that came from was the same as all emotional intrapersonal responses. And from the way he was looking at her, the way he was touching her, it wasn’t just a sexual response - though she could easily tell that was there too - it was something more. From a strictly scientific perspective it was fascinating, bringing into question the philosophical arguments about the human mind. From a personal perspective, she was excited by it. 

She wasn't in love with him, but she was definitely heading that way; she could see it, feel it. How could she blame herself anyways, she attracted to him _before_ he saved her life multiple times and brought her on a whirlwind adventure around the world. She was a modern woman, but stuff like that was right out of a romance novel and damn if it didn’t make her swoon just a bit. 

She'd always been a very independent person, ever since childhood. There was nearly 15 years between her and her sister and while they loved each other, it was hard to be friends as kids when Marta was still making cushion forts while her sister was off looking at universities. It got better the older they got, when they were experiencing similar things - well as similar as a geneticist and a history teacher could be, and the idea that she'd never see her again took her breath away if she dwelled too long. But she spent a lot of time alone as a child; always the one reading in the corner or staring up at the sky. She never really needed anybody, which suited her well when she went into the hard sciences, when it needed to be fortified to make it as far as she did. ‘Never look weak. Never depend on a man,’ was what she lived by and it served her well. 

So it was with some confusion that she realized that she liked that he could protect her. God, she hated even just thinking the thought; she'd always rejected the caveman stereotype of man-protect-woman-cook type crap that society liked to spew out. But maybe when it was between equals, it was okay. She protected him just as much, but in a different way; there were things she could do that he could not, places she could go. Sure, she couldn’t break anyone’s neck (though Aaron had started training her for hand-to-hand combat so maybe one day she could do that), but she was wicked smart at dealing with people, of negotiating, with helping them blend in. They’d only be on the run a month, but so far they’d both been responsible for one another, keeping each other in one piece at the end of the day. 

They were a team. 

She heard him slide off the exam table and she turned as he grabbed her hand, pulling her close and kissing her. Standing, she could feel all of him pressed against her and she melted into his arms as they wrapped around her. He grabbed her butt and pulled her a little roughly up against his hips, making her moan into his mouth and drag her hands through his hair. 

"Have I said thank you yet?" she said, breaking the kiss. 

"For what?"

"Saving my life," 

He smiled, "I should say the same thing to you,". 

“I know how you could show your gratitude,” she whispered, voice low, her fingers teasingly dipping below the top of his underwear. 

“Why, Doctor Lennox,” he said, “I do believe you’re trying to woo me,” 

She threw her head back and laughed, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards their bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, from stalking your tumblr I decided you were awesome and we should be friends haha.
> 
> You said you enjoy character studies - which is like my favourite thing to write, but I fear I may have let this story get away from me. Hahaha. *dumps word vomit of character study* :D


End file.
